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AUTHOR P.L.RYAN ANNOUNCES LAUNCH OF WEB SITE
DANVILLE, IL – As the 42nd anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. draws near, P.L. Ryan, author of The Boys of Birmingham, announces the launch of her new website. It honors the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and also promotes her book, which chronicles the tumultuous Southern times leading up to and immediately following the assassination of this great American hero.
“It’s been over four decades since the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the hands of James Earl Ray. I felt that that the time was right to address a dimension of the King assassination that was long overlooked,” Ryan said.
According to Ryan, that dimension is the unique thought and effort placed into the FBI’s unorthodox plans for identifying and apprehending James Earl Ray.
To address this aspect of the King story, Ryan wrote The Boys of Birmingham, first published August 2009, and launched www.drmartinlutherkingjrassassination.com to honor the memory of Dr. King – and to chronicle the efforts of the specific FBI team of agents who worked tirelessly to bring MLK’s assassin to justice.
The site is still in its developmental stages, but will eventually showcase excerpts from the novel, feature archival photographs of the FBI’s own “Boys of Birmingham” and allow visitors to place orders there for the book.
In her book, Ryan outlines and spins special new stories of the professional and personal lives of the special FBI agents undertaking the investigation into King’s assassination, which was considered to be a federal crime. An added dimension of depth here is that Ryan’s father, William A. Saucier, was lead investigator of those white, northern, Irish-Catholic FBI agents dubbed “The Boys of Birmingham.”
According to Ryan’s account, the “Boys” were many of the brightest and best of the Bureau in the 1960s, having intriguing nicknames such as “The Dallas Duplicator,” “The Sailor” and “Tampa Fats.” Each one had his own success stories as an agent, with “Dallas” being the man who arrested President Kennedy’s convicted killer; but their shining moment would really come in the summer of 1968.
Saucier’s team is the one credited with identifying, discovering and performing the main actions leading to the arrest of James Earl Ray, King’s assassin.
“It was Dad’s idea, how to identify (and find) the assassin. Once identified, (Ray) was arrested in London’s Heathrow Airport – two months and four days after the assassination,” Ryan said.
According to Ryan, the book took five years to write and was done as a joint project with her father.
“There were some who thought the subject matter was ‘old news’ but I felt it was important to show that not all white FBI agents working in the South were racists. My dad and his associates endured their own forms of prejudice, being called ‘Yankees’ and ‘outsiders.’ I wish that my father had lived long enough to see the finished product. Unfortunately, Dad died three years into the process,” Ryan said.
Ryan has also written an historical novel and some children’s books.
The Boys of Birmingham is now available at Barnes & Noble and on Amazon, in both soft cover and ebook formats. For more information about “The Boys of Birmingham” and their investigation into the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., please visit www.theboysofbirmingham.com . Sphere: Related Content
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